King Edward I or ‘Longshanks’ was born on the 17/18 June 1239 at the Palace of Westminster, London. He succeeded his father King Henry III as King of England on 20 November 1272 (whoops, sorry Edward, just missed your anniversary there!).
As was the custom, he was married as a child to Eleanor of Castile (also a child, I believe they were aged 15 and 10 at the time), daughter of King Ferdinand III of Castile and his second wife Joan, sometimes called Jeanne D’ammartin. Eleanor was born in around 1244/45, no recorded date is known for her birth or baptism.
Edward and Eleanor married between 13 and 31 October 1254 at the Abbey of Las Huelgas, Burgos, Castile and had the following children:
Eleanor 1264-1298
Joan 1265
John 1266-1271/2
Henry 1267/8-1274
Alice
Juliana or Katherine 1271
Joan 1272-1307
Alfonso 1273-1284
Margaret 1275-1318
Berengaria or Berenice 1276-1279
Mary 1278-1332
Isabella 1279
Elizabeth 1282-1316
Edward (later Edward II) 1284-1327 (murdered)
Beatrice 1286-? (died young)
Blanche 1289/90-? (died young)
Queen Eleanor died on the 28 November 1290 leaving Edward bereft. It was after her funeral procession to her burial in Westminster Abbey (which happened in December 1290) that Edward planned and eventually had erected the 12 crosses in the places where her body had rested overnight.
Edward I eventually married again in 1299 to Margaret, daughter of King Philip III of France. He died on 7 July 1307 and is also buried in Westminster Abbey.
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Eleanor’s biographer John Carmi Parsons puts her date of birth at the end of 1241, which would make her 13 or close to it at the time of her wedding. A document written by the archbishop of Toledo before 31 March 1243 mentions her. There were 49 candlebearers at her funeral, which Parsons takes to mean that she was 49 when she died. Parsons also postulates that Eleanor had a stillborn daughter in May 1255, less than seven months after the wedding, when Eleanor was almost certainly still 13! He also questions the existence of Edward and Eleanor’s youngest children Beatrice and Blanche, and says that Edward II was their youngest child (there’s a lot about all this in the archives of Google groups)
By the way, their daughter Margaret was still alive in 1333, when she sent a letter to her nephew Edward III, and Eleanor, the one who died in 1298, was born in 1269.
I would certainly love for someone to discover an actual full date for her birth, it would be very interesting to know for sure.
Royal genealogy is a tricky thing, it’s fairly well published but there are always several arguments over details. Which is why I’ve gone with the consensus, just looking at a couple of my books gives the same children and dates. But hey ho, we’ll probably never know for sure, so I just enjoy what we have.
Maybe if I’m lucky (when I’m dead) I’ll get all the gossip!
I think it was Agnes Strickland in the 19th century who gave the date of Margaret’s death as 1318, and lots of people have followed it without checking. But managing to write a letter 15 years after death is quite an achievement!
And another 19th century historian confused Eleanor, who married the count of Bar, with a daughter born to Edward and Eleanor in 1264 – presumably Katherine, who died 5 Sept 1264. But the Patent Rolls show a payment to a messenger who brought the news of Eleanor’s birth to Henry III in June 1269.
Have you read John Carmi Parsons’ bio of Eleanor? It’s a but dry, but worth a read!
I love anomalies! Dead letter writing! I have his bio Alianore, but I haven’t done anything but thumb through it as yet.